If I only had a brain
I do not want to complain too much about the students that I have this semester, not that I'm against complaining about the students. I don't teach high school after all; I teach college, and some people simply aren't college material. If you brow beat a child, you're a dick, but I teach adults and if they act like idiots, I'm not against saying so, or even sharing with you.
The problem is that one of my classes is composed of frickin' geniuses. I find myself giving them advice, not as their teacher, but as a fellow writer. I cannot heap enough praise on them, and they deserve almost all of it. My only complaint is that they don't talk much in class, but I have been told that I can be, at times, intimidating. Believe me, its better than being a pushover. If any of you have been in a college classroom where the teacher was a pushover, I'm sure you'll agree: an easy going teacher all but summons some crazy fucker to come out of the woodwork and scream derogatory comments at any idea he or she does not immediately condone.
My other class, however, is a little worse. I'm under emoting that. They're pretty horrible. At first, I just thought that they were ridiculously above all this--a condition you sometimes get with freshman their first semester just before they drop out. I have come, however, to realize that they are in fact kind of brainless. I will illustrate using two points.
The first point is this: I asked the class, as a writing exercise, to think of a story that illustrated the point of their paper. I then asked them to do a number of things with that story (determine who the hero was, who the villain, what did the hero and villain have in common, what were the important details of the story, etc.). Someone raised their hand and said, "what if there are no stories that illustrate your point?"...
Is that zen or something. I don't even know how to respond to that question. What could it mean? What sort of argument or idea cannot be illustrated in a story. When I balked at the question, this student asked how one went about coming up with a story. It was a serious question.
Now, you might think that I'm being played, but I'm not. These are people who log time with a tutor, and I am sent that tutor's log, and it is held up in front of me as a defense against their grade. "What do you mean I got a B-, I spent six hours with a tutor!" Their writing is horrendous. I received better essays from high schoolers back in California. Most of these students are on scholarship, all of them are taking their second semester of college writing, and two are juniors. Meanwhile, I've received entire essays about the hypocrisy of the Christine religion, and other essays which discuss the political repercussions when one chooses to fallow the ten commandments.
"What if there isn't a story that illustrates the point?" My brain still hurts.
My favorite move from this class, however, is not their lack of intelligence. That I suppose I can forgive, though not the system that brought them to my classroom, nor the system that will probably fire me if I flunk them all. What gets me is that stupid people are so often proud of their stupidity. Just today I received an email from someone who was supposed to get me their paper on Thursday. The re read, "Finally!!"
Evidently, this student was hoping to cause a preemptive strike. She knows that I know that she's late. Hell, that has to count for something, right? I mean she's as fed up with her performance as I am. I wonder if she'll feel that same empathy with me if I give her an F, or will that be the moment that all this understanding was meant to avoid. Will she say to me, "I thought we were together man, I mean, we both agreed that my performance is ridiculously sub par. I thought we were on the same page. How could you give me an F."
Ah incompetence!
The problem is that one of my classes is composed of frickin' geniuses. I find myself giving them advice, not as their teacher, but as a fellow writer. I cannot heap enough praise on them, and they deserve almost all of it. My only complaint is that they don't talk much in class, but I have been told that I can be, at times, intimidating. Believe me, its better than being a pushover. If any of you have been in a college classroom where the teacher was a pushover, I'm sure you'll agree: an easy going teacher all but summons some crazy fucker to come out of the woodwork and scream derogatory comments at any idea he or she does not immediately condone.
My other class, however, is a little worse. I'm under emoting that. They're pretty horrible. At first, I just thought that they were ridiculously above all this--a condition you sometimes get with freshman their first semester just before they drop out. I have come, however, to realize that they are in fact kind of brainless. I will illustrate using two points.
The first point is this: I asked the class, as a writing exercise, to think of a story that illustrated the point of their paper. I then asked them to do a number of things with that story (determine who the hero was, who the villain, what did the hero and villain have in common, what were the important details of the story, etc.). Someone raised their hand and said, "what if there are no stories that illustrate your point?"...
Is that zen or something. I don't even know how to respond to that question. What could it mean? What sort of argument or idea cannot be illustrated in a story. When I balked at the question, this student asked how one went about coming up with a story. It was a serious question.
Now, you might think that I'm being played, but I'm not. These are people who log time with a tutor, and I am sent that tutor's log, and it is held up in front of me as a defense against their grade. "What do you mean I got a B-, I spent six hours with a tutor!" Their writing is horrendous. I received better essays from high schoolers back in California. Most of these students are on scholarship, all of them are taking their second semester of college writing, and two are juniors. Meanwhile, I've received entire essays about the hypocrisy of the Christine religion, and other essays which discuss the political repercussions when one chooses to fallow the ten commandments.
"What if there isn't a story that illustrates the point?" My brain still hurts.
My favorite move from this class, however, is not their lack of intelligence. That I suppose I can forgive, though not the system that brought them to my classroom, nor the system that will probably fire me if I flunk them all. What gets me is that stupid people are so often proud of their stupidity. Just today I received an email from someone who was supposed to get me their paper on Thursday. The re read, "Finally!!"
Evidently, this student was hoping to cause a preemptive strike. She knows that I know that she's late. Hell, that has to count for something, right? I mean she's as fed up with her performance as I am. I wonder if she'll feel that same empathy with me if I give her an F, or will that be the moment that all this understanding was meant to avoid. Will she say to me, "I thought we were together man, I mean, we both agreed that my performance is ridiculously sub par. I thought we were on the same page. How could you give me an F."
Ah incompetence!
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
11:59 AM
3 Comments:
Not to be my usual crazy fucker self {which I inflicted equally on easy going teachers, intimidating teachers, and absolutely blow your fucking mind excellent teachers by which I mean yourself} but we don't have the whole story here. It is more understandable to understand your frustration should you reveal that you covered examples of what you meant by "story." I would hopefully not need to ask for clarification of what essay they were responding to, and what "point" they were trying to make if I were your student. I'm the kind of crazy fucker who immediately goes wiseass and asks if by "story" I can use:
- a fable, such as Aesop's fables that make moral or judgement assertions. And then if yes, could I use the Bullwinkle's cartoon version.
- a play, movie, T.V. episode of a show, a novel, chapter or part of a novel, short story, or poem? Would WCW's poem about eating the cold plums from the fridge be appropriate? What about the episode of the Simpsons where Bart steals the head off the stature of Jebidiah Springfield?
- or are you asking for an anecdotal story about something in my experience?
- Or lastly, a story from a reputable print source such as a magazine, or news source?
Obviously no such student exists in your class, and you would probably love to have at least one sitting there. That or love to shrink me down to gummi bear size and lose track of where I was standing on the floor as you walked around the classroom with your heavy snow and mud laden boots passing back papers.
By the way, I went with the "easy going crazy fucker who escaped from the woodwork and rambles intimidatingly and knowlegbly about just about everything under the sun" variant of teaching. I found most of my students completely mute at first, but most eventually became somewhat bewildered but encouraged and eager respondees.
Oh yeah, I just remembered another thought.
When should you tell a completely vapid dullard of a student that you see being a vapid every-day dullard who will somehow find a space in the vast corporate machinery as a small, but essentially useless cog in their future?
Or is it better to let them just go on to such an eventuality knowing your telling them will make no difference at all?
And the answer Avram is "yes."
Post a Comment
<< Home